Tilde LowengrimmSep 8, 2024
I love reading ancient cuneiform tablets. Classics such as "Fuck you, this copper sucks." (Ea Nasir), "I should get more new clothes, my dad's employee gets new clothes twice a month and it's embarrassing.", and of course "The sesame harvest will die — let nobody say I did not warn you!", which is absolutely a set up for "Per my last clay tablet.".

Social media & email may be part of the problem. But if we're still like this when we have to carve our petty bullshit into clay then it's clear that we're the problem. It's us.
Show threadAdrian Riskin 

@tilde Some papyri aren't bad for this either, e.g. Oxyrhynchus 119:

Theon to his father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city! If you won't take me with you to Alexandria I won't write you a letter or speak to you or say goodbye to you; and if you go to Alexandria I won't take your hand nor ever greet you again. That is what will happen if you won't take me. Mother said to Archelaus, "It quite upsets him to be left behind (?)." It was good of you to send me presents ... on the 12th, the day you sailed. Send me a lyre, I implore you. If you don't, I won't eat, I won't drink; there now![

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_Oxyrhynchus_119

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 119 - Wikipedia

Sep 8, 2024 at 4:32pmWeb
Show threadBeeCycling has movedSep 9, 2024
@AdrianRiskin @tilde Gotta wonder if this why GRRM used "Theon" for an entitled, spoiled brat of a character.
Show threadcwicseolfor (has moved!)Nov 28, 2024
@beecycling @AdrianRiskin @tilde Entirely possible. But I also wonder if maybe they had a hyperbolic sort of ongoing joke. If so, would that have been considered odd in their time and place? Or was it a fashionable mode of humor?